It has many coarse, wiry roots, between three and nine bright green leaves and up to twenty green, star-shaped flowers with reddish brown markings and a white patch on the labellum.

It grows in rainforest on trees, shrubs and occasionally on rocks and occurs on the near coastal ranges of eastern Queensland.

Plectorrhiza brevilabris is an epiphytic or lithophytic herb with a single main flattened stem, 100–500 mm (3.9–20 in) long with many coarse, wiry roots near its base.

The side lobes curve outwards and the middle lobe has a white, fleshy spur about 7 mm (0.28 in) long that curves downwards.

[2][3] The small tangle orchid was first formally described in 1880 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name Cleisostoma brevilabre and published the description in Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae.